"the CDU nomination for President in 1979 and Chancellor in 1980, Gerhard Schröder became Chancellor of Germany in 1998, his successor Sigmar Gabriel is the current SPD chairman and Christian Wulff was elected President of Germany in 2010. Examples of Lower Saxony's influence on policy debates in federal politics include Ernst Albrecht's advocacy of financial transfers from other states and Gerhard Schröder's usage of Lower Saxony's ""Bundesrat"" votes in matters of fiscal and tax policy. Political Party: Minister President of Lower Saxony The Minister President of Lower Saxony (), also referred to as Premier or Prime Minister, is the head"
"Christian Wulff Christian Wilhelm Walter Wulff (; born 1959) is a German politician and lawyer. He served as President of Germany from 2010 to 2012. A member of the Christian Democratic Union, he served as Prime Minister of the state of Lower Saxony from 2003 to 2010. He was elected President in the 30 June 2010 presidential election, defeating opposition candidate Joachim Gauck and taking office immediately, although he was not sworn in until On 17 February 2012, Wulff resigned as President of Germany, facing the prospect of prosecution for allegations of corruption relating to his prior service as Minister-President"
"31 May 2010. He won 625 of 1242 votes on the third ballot of the Federal Convention. He became Germany's youngest president at the age of 51 and was sworn in on 2 July 2010 in front of the Bundestag and the Bundesrat. His main contender in the election was Joachim Gauck, a civil rights activist from East Germany and a former Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records. Not a member of any party himself, Gauck was nominated by the opposition SPD and Greens as their presidential candidate on . Wulff was succeeded as Premier of Lower Saxony by David"
"in nature. Together with his wife, Köhler currently lives in Berlin and Chiemgau. Horst Köhler Horst Köhler (; born 22 February 1943) is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union, and served as President of Germany from 2004 to 2010. As the candidate of the two Christian Democratic sister parties, the CDU and the CSU, and the liberal FDP, Köhler was elected to his first five-year term by the Federal Assembly on 23 May 2004 and was subsequently inaugurated on 1 July 2004. He was reelected to a second term on 23 May 2009. Just a year later, on"
"Horst Köhler Horst Köhler (; born 22 February 1943) is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union, and served as President of Germany from 2004 to 2010. As the candidate of the two Christian Democratic sister parties, the CDU and the CSU, and the liberal FDP, Köhler was elected to his first five-year term by the Federal Assembly on 23 May 2004 and was subsequently inaugurated on 1 July 2004. He was reelected to a second term on 23 May 2009. Just a year later, on 31 May 2010, he resigned from his office in a controversy over his"
"of Chancellor. After the 23 May announcement that federal elections were to be advanced to September 2005, Wulff announced that he was not a candidate for the Christian Democrat nomination for Chancellor, particularly as he had not completed his first term as Premier of Lower Saxony. Instead, Wulff declared his support for Angela Merkel, the CDU leader in the Bundestag. Although there was speculation that Wulff would be given a position in the new government, entering federal politics, he remained Premier of Lower Saxony. Wulff was elected President of Germany on 2010 to follow Horst Köhler, who had resigned on"
"apologized for his choice of words. Künast also stated that any future cooperation with the Left was ""miles away"", particularly in light of the party's rejection of Gauck. The SPD and Greens also blamed The Left for the election of Christian Wulff. Gysi, on the other hand, criticized the SPD of not cooperating with his party, which is considered extreme by federal authorities, and again pointed out differences in political positions between Gauck and the Left. On 2 July 2010 Wulff was sworn into office as President of Germany. 2010 German presidential election An indirect presidential election (officially the 14th"
"the Bundesrat, Jens Böhrnsen, until Christian Wulff was elected president on 30 June 2010. Wulff himself resigned less than two years later after allegations of corruption were levelled against him. Wulff resigned on 17 February 2012 and was succeeded by Joachim Gauck. Since leaving office, Köhler continues to voice his opinion on selected foreign and domestic policy matters, most notably on Europe-Africa relations, the global fight against poverty and climate change as well as on the need for a new spirit of global partnership. Between 2010 and 2011, Köhler served as member of the Palais Royal Initiative, a group convened"
"the ruling CDU/CSU parties for election as President of Germany in the 2010 presidential election, but Christian Wulff was eventually chosen as the parties' candidate. The news media later reported that Wulff's nomination came as a blow to Merkel, whose choice of Leyen had been blocked by the two parties' more conservative state premiers. In November 2010, von der Leyen was elected (with 85% of the votes) as one of four deputies of CDU chairwoman Angela Merkel, serving alongside Volker Bouffier, Norbert Röttgen and Annette Schavan. Later that month, she told the ""Bild am Sonntag"" newspaper that the CDU should"
"Böhrnsen was elected President of the German Bundesrat for the year 2009–2010, starting 1 November 2009. This office rotates between the heads of government of the states of Germany following a defined schedule. According to the German constitution, article 57, the head of the Bundresrat is the designated substitute for the President of Germany. When Horst Köhler resigned from the presidency on 31 May 2010, Böhrnsen assumed the functions of head of state of Germany until the election of a successor by a Federal Convention. The successor was Christian Wulff, who assumed office upon his election on 30 June 2010."
"and the occupy movement. The SPD chairman, Sigmar Gabriel, however, stated that the reason that Die Linke was the only party that did not support Gauck was its ""sympathy for the German Democratic Republic."" David Gill was appointed head of Gauck's transition team, and later became head of the Bundespräsidialamt. On 18 March 2012, Gauck was elected President of Germany with 991 of 1228 votes in the Federal Convention. Upon accepting his election, he assumed the presidency immediately. The new President took the oath of office required by article 56 of Germany's Constitution on Friday 23 March 2012 in the"
"no substantial support in the dispute, Köhler stepped down on 31 May 2010, issuing a statement saying ""I declare my resignation from the Office of President, with immediate effect."" The resignation was considered a ""surprise"", and both pundits and opposition politicians labeled it ""an overreaction"". The following days he was criticized for not being able to handle criticism while being a rigorous critic himself. His unprecedented act of immediate resignation was also considered showing a lack of respect for his position. As stipulated by the German constitution, the powers of the vacant office were executed by the current President of"
"moving out of their Hannover home. They started divorce proceedings in March 2015, but only two months later they got together again and stopped the proceedings. In August 2017 it was revealed that Wulff works as an advisor for the German branch of Yargici, a Turkish high-street fashion company. Christian Wulff Christian Wilhelm Walter Wulff (; born 1959) is a German politician and lawyer. He served as President of Germany from 2010 to 2012. A member of the Christian Democratic Union, he served as Prime Minister of the state of Lower Saxony from 2003 to 2010. He was elected President"
"McAllister. Wulff's candidacy for President of Germany in the 2010 presidential election was formally confirmed by Angela Merkel, Guido Westerwelle and Horst Seehofer, the heads of the CDU, FDP and CSU parties, during the evening of 2010. In August 2011, President Wulff opened an economists' conference on with a speech on the euro. He criticized the European Central Bank (ECB), which had entered a second round of bond buy-ups from heavily indebted euro-zone nations, calling the plan to stabilize the euro ""legally and politically questionable"". See List of presidential trips made by Christian Wulff for more information about his presidency."
"the incumbent Premier of Lower Saxony, was nominated as the candidate of the government parties (CDU, CSU, FDP). Prior to this, Federal Minister of Labour Ursula von der Leyen (CDU) had been considered the front-runner for the nomination of the government parties. Because the Constitution of Germany forbids the President to hold other offices, Christian Wulff resigned from his seat in the Landtag of Lower Saxony on 11 June 2010 and announced to leave the supervisory board of Volkswagen the following week. He resigned from his post as Premier of Lower Saxony upon being elected as President on 30 June,"
"handing his resignation letter to Landtag President Hermann Dinkla, who was also a delegate to the Federal Convention, before heading towards the podium to formally accept his election. On 3 June 2010, the Social Democratic Party, the Greens and the SSW, nominated independent Joachim Gauck, an anti-communist civil rights activist from East Germany and the first Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records, as their presidential candidate. In the days following the official nominations, several FDP and CDU politicians expressed their support for Gauck, among them former Brandenburg CDU chairman Jörg Schönbohm and Oliver Möllenstädt, chairman of Bremen's FDP. Gauck is"
"was nominated for President of Germany in the 2010 election by the SPD and the Greens. Gauck is not a member of either the SPD or the Greens (although his former party in East Germany eventually merged with the Greens after reunification), and has stated that he would have accepted a nomination by the CDU as well. Gauck once described himself as a ""leftist, liberal conservative"" and after his nomination, stated: ""I'm neither red nor green, I'm Joachim Gauck"". The ""Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung"" described him as a liberal conservative. Gauck is widely respected across the political spectrum, and is very"
"chancellor in the 2009 federal election, but his party lost the election and he left the federal cabinet to become leader of the opposition. Following the 2013 federal election he again became Minister for Foreign Affairs in Merkel's second grand coalition. In November 2016 he was announced as the candidate of the governing coalition consisting of his own party and the CDU/CSU for President of Germany, and thus became the presumptive elect as the coalition held a large majority in the Federal Convention; he left the cabinet on 27 January 2017. He was elected as President by the Federal Convention"
"for 12 February 2017. Merkel had originally wanted to nominate Green politician Marianne Birthler, and as the CDU/CSU and the Greens control a majority in the Federal Convention, Birthler's election would have been secured. However, Birthler after some time decided not to run. On 12 February 2017 Germany's 16th Federal Convention elected Steinmeier President on the first ballot, with 931 votes out of a total of 1,260. Steinmeier took office as President of Germany on 19 March 2017, after the expiration of his predecessor's term in office, and he took on 22 March 2017 the oath that, in accordance with"
"term on 1 July 2009. On 31 May 2010, Köhler announced his resignation as President of Germany. This came after German politicians criticised comments made by Köhler in relation to overseas military deployments: After coming under criticism for his statements that Germany's military missions abroad also served to secure trade, critics accused him of advocating the use of ""gunboat diplomacy"". He subsequently stated that his comments referred to piracy off the coast of Somalia. Köhler stated that there was no substance to accusations that in the interview he had overstepped his formal role by favoring an unconstitutional position. After getting"
"Christian Social Union (CSU), President of the Bundesrat, served as acting head of state. In the days following Wulff's resignation, the media speculated about several candidates, among them Joachim Gauck, Thomas de Maizière and Klaus Töpfer. Chancellor Angela Merkel said she would consult with the Social Democrats and The Greens to find a consensus candidate to replace Wulff. On 19 February 2012, the governing coalition's CDU, CSU, and FDP and the opposition SPD and Greens agreed on independent Joachim Gauck, the 2010 presidential candidate of the SPD and Greens, as their joint candidate. This happened after the FDP, the SPD,"
"in February 2010 affirmed that she was the SPD's candidate for Minister-President at the May 2010 state election. The state election on 9 May 2010 resulted in a near tie with the governing CDU at 67 seats, and with Kraft's preferred red-green coalition one seat short of an overall majority; at the time, the federal government under Chancellor Angela Merkel blamed the result on voter anger at the first aid package for Greece. After many parallel negotiations and various coalitions, Kraft was elected Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia on 14 July 2010 on the second ballot with a sufficient majority of"
"Joachim Gauck Joachim Wilhelm Gauck (; born 24 January 1940) is a German politician and civil rights activist who served as President of Germany from 2012 to 2017. A former Lutheran pastor, he came to prominence as an anti-communist civil rights activist in East Germany. During the Peaceful Revolution in 1989, he was a co-founder of the New Forum opposition movement in East Germany, which contributed to the downfall of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) and later with two other movements formed the electoral list Alliance 90. In 1990 he was a member of the only freely elected"
"Frank-Walter Steinmeier Frank-Walter Steinmeier (; born 5 January 1956) is a German politician serving as President of Germany since 19 March 2017. He previously was Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2005 to 2009 and again from 2013 to 2017, and Vice-Chancellor of Germany from 2007 to 2009. He was chairman-in-office of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in 2016. Steinmeier is a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), holds a doctorate in law and was formerly a career civil servant. He was a close aide of Gerhard Schröder when Schröder was Prime Minister of"
"of the CDU, but McAllister declined, arguing he did not want to rise too far too fast. He was a CDU delegate to the Federal Convention for the purpose of electing the President of Germany in 2004, 2009, 2010 and 2012. On 4 June 2010, McAllister was designated by his party to succeed Christian Wulff as Minister-President of Lower Saxony, if the latter were to be elected President of Germany on 30 June. After the election of Wulff as President, David McAllister was elected the new Minister-President of Lower Saxony the following day. He was subsequently also appointed to the"
"2010 Austrian presidential election The Austrian presidential election took place on 25 April 2010. It was the twelfth election of an Austrian head of state since 1951. The candidates were President Heinz Fischer (independent, formerly SPÖ), Barbara Rosenkranz (FPÖ) and Rudolf Gehring (CPÖ). Heinz Fischer won with just under 80% of the valid votes. The turnout was on the historic low of about 54%. Incumbent President Heinz Fischer (independent, former member of the Social Democratic Party) announced on 23 November 2009 that he will seek a second term. According to a 27 June 2009, Gallup poll for the newspaper Österreich,"
"Papier ended in 2010, Voßkuhle became the youngest President in the history of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany. In February 2012, Chancellor Angela Merkel offered Voßkuhle the opportunity to succeed Christian Wulff as President of Germany, after the president's resignation. He later declined the offer. After Norbert Lammert, the President of the Bundestag, criticized the court's 2009 ruling on the Treaty of Lisbon, Voßkuhle wrote in an op-ed piece in the daily newspaper ""Süddeutsche Zeitung"" that Lammert's statements were ""strong words for a non-lawyer"" and hardly served to ""foster a culture of respect."" Lammert eventually came around and upon"
"Merkel government. In response, Steinmeier rejected the charges and said that he had asked the University of Giessen to check his dissertation for unacknowledged citations. In May 2013, a university committee for safeguarding academic practices found that Steinmeier had no fraudulent intent and had not committed academic misconduct in his dissertation. The committee did find ""technical weaknesses"" in Steinmeier's citations, but said they were not severe enough to consider revoking his degree. Frank-Walter Steinmeier Frank-Walter Steinmeier (; born 5 January 1956) is a German politician serving as President of Germany since 19 March 2017. He previously was Minister for Foreign"
"2009 German presidential election An indirect presidential election (officially the 13th Federal Convention) was held in Germany on 23 May 2009. The President of Germany is elected by the Federal Convention, which is made up of the members of the Bundestag and an equal number of members elected by the state parliaments. The incumbent Horst Köhler (supported by CDU/CSU and FDP) stood for reelection and faced Gesine Schwan (supported by SPD and Alliance '90/The Greens). The Left (successor of the Party of Democratic Socialism) indicated they might be prepared to support Schwan if the SPD agreed to be open to"
"government of Germany, and was sworn in on 14 March 2018 after. The negotiations that led to a Grand Coalition agreement with the Social Democracts (SPD) were the longest in German post-war history, lasting almost six months. Midway through her second term, Merkel's approval plummeted in Germany, resulting in heavy losses in state elections for her party. An August 2011 poll found her coalition had only 36% support compared to a rival potential coalition's 51%. However, she scored well on her handling of the recent euro crisis (69% rated her performance as good rather than poor), and her approval rating"
"Peer Steinbrück in 2005 came into office again on 14 June 2010 with the election of Hannelore Kraft as minister-president (Cabinet Kraft I). The Greens founded the first international chapter of a German political party in the U.S. on 13 April 2008 at the Goethe-Institut in Washington D.C. Its main goal is ""to provide a platform for politically active and green-oriented German citizens, in and beyond Washington D.C., to discuss and actively participate in German Green politics. [...] to foster professional and personal exchange, channeling the outcomes towards the political discourse in Germany."" In March 2011 (two weeks after the"
"son Christian, who along with his brother decided to leave the GDR in early 1984 and was able to do so in 1987, studied medicine in West Germany and became a physician. Since 2000, his domestic partner has been Daniela Schadt, a journalist. Gauck is a member of the Evangelical Church in Germany, and served as a pastor for the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Mecklenburg—a member church of that federation. Joachim Gauck Joachim Wilhelm Gauck (; born 24 January 1940) is a German politician and civil rights activist who served as President of Germany from 2012 to 2017. A former"
"were exhausted, the SPD and Greens formed a minority coalition which was affirmed by the Landtag on July 14, 2010, and Kraft succeeded Rüttgers as Minister-President. The final composition of the ultimate government coalition took two months to determine. Neither of the traditional coalitions (SPD-Green or CDU-FDP) has sufficient numbers to command a majority, so the most likely results according to analysts are a grand coalition, a coalition between the left-of-centre parties, or a coalition between the SPD, Greens and the FDP. On May 15, 2010, the FDP declined an offer from the SPD and the Greens to enter talks,"